In order for a manufacturer to give a discount on a product, it must issue a printed coupon to be redeemed by the manufacturer via a retailer or provide for a rebate to be redeemed directly by the manufacturer. Coupons have been supplied through the mail or newspapers, on the product itself, or printed at the retail outlet. In order to obtain a coupon discount on a product, a printed coupon must be presented to the checkout station. The printed coupons redeemed by the retailer are sent to a clearing house who in turn separate the coupons and bills the respective manufacturer for reimbursement of the retailer.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,554,446 issued Nov. 19, 1985 in the name of Murphy et al. discloses a supermarket inventory control system utilizing UPC codes (universal product code) on the product and UPC coupon codes on the coupons which are redeemed. This system discloses scanning the coupon code for the manufacturer, expiration date, and any other conditions. After all products have been moved through the checkout scanner, the computer system compares the coupons with the sold products to insure proper correlation for discounting.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,212 issued Feb. 2, 1988 in the name of Mindrum et al. discloses a coupon dispensing system for printing coupons at the retail outlet in response to the purchase of a product other than the one to which the coupon applies. A record pertaining to each item purchased is examined to determine whether the item is intended to trigger the creation of a coupon. This system also validates the coupon by ensuring the proper product is purchased and the coupon date is valid.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,674,041 issued Jun. 16, 1987 in the name of Lemon et al. discloses a coupon distribution system which uses terminals at remote locations at the retailer to advertise and print coupons as selected by consumers. The system generally provides sending coupon distribution information for each retail outlet to the manufacturer, and redemption of coupons is accomplished by the known manner of sending the information to a coupon clearing house for billing.
The problems with these types of systems include the possibilities of the counterfeiting of coupons and of fraud in the redemption of coupons. Additionally, some of these types of systems require that the consumer obtain the coupon elsewhere which decreases the redemption rate of coupons. The handling of the redeemed coupons by a clearing house requires extra cost and time for each printed coupon processing.